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At the height of his fame in the mid-1980s, Hulk Hogan wrestled in front of 93,000 fans at the Pontiac Silverdome.

He was the first, and to date, only professional wrestler to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated.

He was the star of a Saturday morning cartoon.

He was, by far, the most famous person to have ever set foot in the squared circle.

But in December 2007, he was alone.

His marriage of nearly 25 years was disintegrating. His son Nick was facing felony charges for a car wreck that severely injured Nick’s friend.

For two days, Hogan sat in front of a mirror, gun in hand. He put the gun to his cheek, scratched his nose with it, stuck it in his mouth.

The hard times aren’t quite over for Hogan, but he has come out of that darkness –– remarried –– and is pursuing new business opportunities.

He is also embarking tour, sponsored by Body by Vi Challenge, a health and fitness program. He will talk about his life, as well as the program. The tour stops Friday at Greensboro’s War Memorial Auditorium.

“I had basically bottomed out there for a few years with divorce and with back surgeries and everything,” Hogan said by phone. “As we go through life, the hustle and bustle of trying to make it through every day, sometimes we focus more on work, accomplishments than we do on what’s real — our faith, stuff that we can’t see.”

Hulkamania!

Hogan has undergone eight back surgeries. He’s had hip replacements. Torn biceps, quads, hamstrings. You name it, it’s happened. At 58, however, he still has massive arms, a rock solid ab (not a six-pack, but rather one big piece of muscle over his stomach) and a body that would shame most guys 30 years his junior.

He started lifting weights when he was 18, he said, and hasn’t missed too many workouts since.

“I do an hour of weights, a little bit of ab work, cardio stuff is minimal,” he said. “I’m pretty much on a diet that involves not too many grains.”

Born Terry Bollea (he adopted the stage name Hulk Hogan in the late 1970s), the wrestling legend grew up in Tampa, Fla., and initially thought he’d find stardom in the music world, touring with various groups around the Sunshine State throughout the early to mid-1970s.

However, he also had grown up watching grapplers like Dusty Rhodes and Superstar Billy Graham, and when Hogan was in his 20s, he caught the wrestling bug himself while chatting with some wrestlers who came to his shows. After a punishing tutelage under Hiro Matsuda, he bounced around a couple of regional outfits, before joining (and a few years later leaving) the WWWF (now known as WWE).

Hogan said the 2008 film, “The Wrestler,” which starred Mickey Rourke as a down-on-his-luck grappler, reminded him of his early days.

“Sleeping in a van,” he said. “There was a scene where he got locked out of his trailer, and he had to sleep in the van. I pretty much slept in my van for two years because I couldn’t afford a hotel room. I was getting paid $15, $20 a night to wrestle.”

In 1982, Hogan rocketed to national fame when he battled Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky III.” He went back to the rebranded WWF and donned his now famous red and yellow tights. Hulkamania was born.

The WWF in the mid-1980s was filled with colorful, larger-than-life personalities — Rowdy Roddy Piper, the Iron Sheik, Macho Man Randy Savage. But none were bigger than the Hulk.

In his 2009 book, “My Life Outside the Ring” (which he penned with journalist Mark Dagostino ), Hogan describes taking pop star Cyndi Lauper to the Grammys, hanging out at Studio 54, and watching the heads of GM, Ford and Chrysler “jockey to see who got the best seats” when he wrestled in Detroit. Muhammad Ali told him that Hogan was the “greatest of all time.” When he body slammed Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III in 1987, nearly 100,000 fans roared.

“It was pretty wild,” he said. “Even in China and Russia, I was big. People would tell me, 'Hey, do you know how famous you are in Russia?’ It does kind of freak me out when people from Iran or Malaysia or Brazil tell me, 'Wow, I grew up watching you.’ I forget how powerful this TV is. It was amazing. It just transcended languages and countries. And it still sometimes catches me off guard.”

Reality star

Hogan’s family also would become stars.

In 2005, “Hogan Knows Best” premiered on VH1. The reality show, a spin-off of a previous special about his daughter Brooke’s music career, became the network’s highest rated show. What audiences saw was a pair of involved parents guiding their kids through the often humorous grind of life.

Hogan met his ex-wife Linda Claridge, a nail salon owner, while clubbing with a friend in California, and the two got married in 1983.

He said he used to brag that he was the only wrestler who never got divorced.

“And that was a big deal,” he said. “All the other world champions had been married and divorced several times. My wife and I, we ran together for about five or six years full-time on the road. And then we made the decision that as soon as my daughter Brooke got old enough to realize that dad was gone, I’d start winding down.”

But behind the scenes of his show, shortly after the fourth season started filming, Hogan began an affair with Christiane Plante, a friend of his daughter’s. By that point, he said in “My Life Outside the Ring,” his marriage already was in trouble, and the show was just concealing the problems in the relationship.

In the book, he described Linda as having some anger issues, and later on disappearing for days. But overall, Hogan said he’s still not quite sure why the marriage broke up.

“Maybe you can get the answer out of her,” he said.

In recent media appearances, Linda has said Hogan was violent toward her, but he dismisses such charges.

“Well, brother, I just pray she gets honest with herself and gets healthy,” he said. “She says all kinds of things. She told somebody the other day that I’m a horse. Doesn’t mean I’m a horse.”

Coming out of the darkness

In August 2007, Nick crashed Hogan’s Toyota Supra in Clearwater, Fla. He suffered a broken wrist and a few cracked ribs, but the passenger, John Graziano, didn’t fare so well. The Iraq War veteran suffered a cracked skull and serious brain injuries. To this day, he continues receiving 24-hour care.

Nick, who had alcohol in his system when the crash occurred, served five months in jail.

Hogan was separated from Linda at the time. Controversy would ensue later when prison tapes were released of Linda and Nick making unflattering comments about Graziano and his family.

With the prospect of a lawsuit looming and his family life in disarray, Hogan came home in December after a stint hosting “American Gladiators.” The dark period he fell into (and which bookends the story he tells in “My Life Outside the Ring”), started abating when he received a call from his “American Gladiators” co-host, Laila Ali (Muhammad’s daughter).

“Hey we love you and we miss you, and we care about you and we wanna make sure you’re doing good,” she’s quoted as saying in the book.

The wrestler was touched by the sentiment and started crying. Soon he went back to work, and the following year, while shopping at a health food store, he met Jennifer McDaniel, an airline worker. The two tied the knot in 2010.

Hogan, who left the WWE in 2007, now works for TNA Wrestling, which he said offers an alternative to the over-the-top theatrics seen in other wrestling organizations.

“We’ve got a lot of young guys who are pushing hard,” he said. “And we’re trying to take our own course of destiny and make wrestling matter again. We’re not really focused on skits and entertainment and backstage antics. We’re more focused on keeping the action as much as we can in the ring.”

Hogan underwent spinal fusion surgery in December and doesn’t step into the ring very often anymore. But he said the difficult times have helped him reassess his priorities.

“As soon I put my faith first, it made everything start to turn around,” he said. “I really took a second look at what was important. And once I switched my thinking to not worrying about the media or negative people or any type of yelling and screaming and craziness, it was like breathing fresh air.”

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com